Shadows on the Wall

We were chained in a row from the day we were born,

facing a wall that was warm and wide,

there's a fire behind us that nobody's seen —

we agreed a long time ago not to turn around and look.

And the figures come parading, oh, they dance across the stone,

we know every single one of them by name,

we've got favourites, we've got villains, we've got heroes made of smoke,

and we'd never call it lonely — we're all facing the same way.

Shadows on the wall, shadows on the wall, (shadows on the wall)

we rate 'em and we love 'em and we swear that's all there is,

shadows on the wall, shadows on the wall, (shadows on the wall)

and the light that makes them dance is at our backs.

Oh, don't you turn your head now, darling — nothing good back there,

just the fire, and the truth, and the cold night air...

so keep your eyes upon the wall, (upon the wall)

and dance with me, and dance with me, and dance.

Well, one of us got loose one night — nobody knows quite how —

and he crawled up through the tunnel and he came back changed,

he said, "There's a sun! There's a sky! There's a colour I can't say!"

and he stood there blinking at us like a stranger in the flame.

So we studied him, we pitied him, we laughed him off the floor,

we said, "Poor man, he's been out in the heat too long,"

'cause if the wall is just a wall, then what were all those years? —

and the answer to that question is a knife nobody wants.

It isn't that we can't turn round.

It's that we've built a life on this direction.

The chains came off a century ago...

we just kept sitting.

We just kept sitting...

and we called it a culture, and we called it a home—

Shadows on the wall, shadows on the wall, (shadows on the wall)

we rate 'em and we love 'em and we swear that's all there is,

shadows on the wall, shadows on the wall, (shadows on the wall)

and the light that makes them dance is at our backs.

So don't you turn your head now, darling — nothing good back there,

just the fire, and the truth, and the cold night air...

so keep your eyes upon the wall, (upon the wall)

and dance with me, and dance with me...

and dance.